Darkest Dungeon Completes Kickstarter Stretch Goals

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Darkest Dungeon has come to typify early access development in my head, such that I forgot that it was also Kickstarted before launching on Steam. That’s relevant today because the game’s new Everything Burns update “completes the last of the Kickstarter game feature stretch goals.”

The marquee feature of the update are “town events”, through which the game can toss you “bonus recruits, extra supplies, facility closures, and more.” Having learned their lesson from earlier, poorly received updates, the frequency of the Town Events can be adjusted via the game’s options menu – though they cannot be reduced for the harder New Game+ mode.

Darkest Dungeon puts you in charge of a band of adventurers plundering their way through a grimdark fantasy world. The twist is that the grimdark world will depress, stress and permanently affect the psyches of your adventurers if you don’t take good care of them, making for a tall challenge and more interesting battle stories than your usual grind/kill/loot loop. Here’s what our Joe said in his review:

You’ll lose lives, money, resolve and the marbles of your crew, before you’re back at the hamlet with nothing to show, no further forward, another four bodies resigned to the graveyard. You’ll incessantly tour a ragtag mob of reluctant rookies into foregone conclusions. You’ll laugh at the fact you’ve wound up with a nymphomaniac alcoholic who is barred from both the Tavern and the Brothel. You’ll cry. And cry and cry and cry. But I think you’ll love it.

Now the team are going to move on to fulfilling the physical Kickstarter rewards, while more updates for the game are still planned. If you want to try this update out ahead of its general release, you can do so by opting into the “coming_in_hot” Beta branch on Steam. There are instructions on how to do so in the post linked above.

10 Comments

I picked this up upon release (being far too curious, but not willing to buy during early-access) and have had a fantastic time. I did, however, put it down to spend time with X-COM 2.

I thought one big update between then and now was great, but another! Oh joy! I can’t wait to finish up my current games and get back to Darkest Dungeon with a bit of fresh content. Both of these were unexpected for me, so I’m thrilled to hear they didn’t just release and forget this one.

Great that they included the slider, learn from history, prevent some drama.
Although I could criticise the criticism that the corpses and heart attacks update got, as it was in early access and the game was sure to change. The game is fully out now, so the inclusion of the slider from the get-go is a great idea.

ah, Darkest Dungeon. Game I appreciate, but don’t particulary like (nor-dislike.) Played it for about 7 hours. While narration and artstyle are great the feeling of dread quite quickly disappeared. Started dealing with 1 lv. bosses. Probably should go back to it. I just doubt it will surprise with anything new at this point.

Played this game for more than 100 hrs, and by the end it becomes this enjoyable dancing simulator. What I can’t believe is that only like 0.5% of people that own the game have even finished it according to steam achievements? What the hell people? This game has some of the best final levels.

As one of the 99.5% I cannot speak for all but I can certainly tell you why I haven’t finished it. It is quite a long game and even though I love it and how unforgivable it is, there are a few obstacles for me:
– SFV taking up the majority of my gaming hours (I really want to become at least average at that game, for some weird reason)
– Dark Souls 3 being released

DD is odd as your character growth stops, but enemy growth keeps going for a bit longer. This leads to an end game of excellent parties with excellent gear can start going crazy and Death’s Door incredibly fast with little wiggle-room. You either get to the boss fast (but after a camping!), dodge enough, and the stuns land or you cut bait. That doesn’t even cover midnight ambushes, those ghoul f***ers, defensive parties pounding out sanity attacks, and just plain bad luck.

This would be fine if it wasn’t the Sisyphean balancing, some patches, it should be more frustration is the goal and a few steps are taken in that direction, in others, much less frustration seems the goal and a few steps go in that direction.

It really feels like Dark Souls 2 in that reguard, at once coddling, then backfisting at odd intervals, and it’s a treatment I’ve not gotten from any other game and I’m still not so sure if its a flaw here or a boon.